


It's Always 1895 Now

by Meretricious



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Case Fic, Cuddling & Snuggling, Danger, First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-16 05:42:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14805450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meretricious/pseuds/Meretricious
Summary: I feared that the blackmailer was testing the lady’s resolve and would not make his presence known. Perhaps it was also my fear that the recent carefully worded conversations between my friend and myself, remarks which hinted at a possibility that my heart had long desired, were the product of misreading his intention.





	It's Always 1895 Now

**Author's Note:**

> My first Victorian Holmes and Watson Johnlock for the It's Always 1895 challenge. I hope it pleases.

‘Mrs Gormstone,’ Holmes said with a hint of impatience at our client’s prevarication. ‘It is essential that I am informed of the nature of this threat.’

Mrs Gormstone, her cheeks flushed hot scarlet, halted in pacing her beautifully appointed morning room. She stood at the window overlooking the verdant lawn, wringing her hands and took a deep breath.

‘My husband, Albert, has shown great kindness to me, Mr Holmes. The terrible circumstance is that he has extended his most generous nature to our secretary, Mr Arthur Arbuttle, who has fled. His note, left for my husband who is currently away, apologises for the inconvenience he believes he has caused. The heinous blackguard threatens to expose my husband’s personal relationship with Arthur unless he is paid for his silence. There, you have it all. Pray, tell me that you can restore our house to order before Albert returns.’

Holmes exhaled slowly and turned his angular face to mine. ‘Change the law and it makes good men into criminals, ripe for the unprincipled to take advantage of.’

I nodded and indicated the distressed lady with my eyes.

‘I will do whatever is within my power to assist you in bringing Mr Arbuttle back to his employment and your home before the return of your husband,’ Holmes promised.

We left our client and paused on her pleasant tree-lined street. 

My friend spoke quietly as if the boughs of the overhanging trees might repeat what they overheard. ‘We cannot entirely choose where life may take us. It may send us on the path to danger.’

‘Yes, but you have never avoided the road less travelled.’

‘True. It is probable that the blackmailer will increase his price when he learns that the lady appears willing to pay. Alternatively, he may have an accomplice and snatch the money. We have one chance, which we must take.’

‘I’m your man,’ I replied.

‘Always the man of action when called to arms,’ Holmes replied. His lips curled into a flicker of a smile while his eyes glistened with a mischievous twinkle.

And so, the game was afoot. Holmes borrowed one of Mrs Gormstone’s dresses and her hooded cloak on a misty night, carrying a purse stuffed with newspaper to meet with the blackmailer in a dank, damp alley. We crept in the shadow of the sienna brick wall, my heart pounding loudly in my ears in the ominous silence. I feared that the blackmailer was testing the lady’s resolve and would not make his presence known. Perhaps it was also my fear that the recent carefully worded conversations between my friend and myself, remarks which hinted at a possibility that my heart had long desired, were the product of misreading his intention. The intermittent clank of a leaking gutter dripping onto a discarded metal trunk kept pace with my fluttering heartbeat.

‘You understand what to do?’ the consulting detective whispered under the hood drawn down over his face.

‘I believe so,’ I answered, my voice barely audible.

‘Act with care for yourself, I cannot lose you, my dear doctor.’ Holmes laid his long violinist’s fingers on my wrist. I forgot to breathe for a moment.

‘I know.’ I would have returned the caution but was silenced by the figure emerging from the dilapidated door of the abandoned warehouse.

‘Here he is.’  
The detective daintily stepped out into the pale moonlight, a ghost in white, leaving me slinking stealthily like a dark shadow walking on shards of glass. The blackmailer, clad in dock labourer’s clothes, hastened towards the hooded figure with a swagger then rushed forward. I darted forward to grab the man. 

He swerved with quick feet and ran back toward the building, empty handed. Hindered by the volume of fabric around his feet, Holmes sprinted, holding up fistfuls of cloak and dress. I ploughed on, racing after our quarry entering the peeling door. I withdrew my old service revolver from my pocket prepared for a possible ambush.

The quarry’s boots clattered on the rickety wooden staircase. A beam of moonlight through the cobwebbed window showed an empty room. I had to prevent him from gaining the roof, bolted up the steps after him. I heard a metallic click as Holmes began searching the rooms with his pistol at the ready.

‘Stop, or I will fire!’ I demanded of the blackmailer.

The staircase creaked like it was breathing its last sigh of pain after long illness. Wood cracked. The wall rushed to meet my face, my feet slid sideways. The world lurched toward the ground floor. Too late to take that one chance? I felt salt water sting my eye as dust swirled, choking my throat. My stomach was left behind as the staircase dropped another foot. Splintering wood crackled like flames consuming a forest.

‘Watson!’

A dull thump sounded below.

‘No!’ I cried. I felt sick to the pit of my stomach. No, this was not meant to be how the man I loved ended his days. Never to be held, living and breathing in my arms and kissed. The passion never to be returned in kind.

‘Stay where you are,’ Holmes called out of the thick gloom of dust.

‘He fell? That was not you!’

‘He fell, that was not you. Thank goodness, ’ answered my friend.

A voice made a croaky relieved sound. It was mine. The dust cleared enough to see a gaping chasm where the woodwormed stairs had stood. To my left half the staircase had ripped away, as surely as my heart had sheared from its moorings. My jacket was pierced by a nail. The torn tweed caught on the six-inch nail was all that was keeping me from sliding to the edge of precipice. I could see the dark hair and pale face with a trembling bottom lip, his eyes wide like black marbles gazing intensely up. 

‘Hold on, there is a pile of sacks,’ he said.

I blessed the tailor and the sack maker equally profusely. Sweat trickled from my forehead. Rip. Holmes had dived away to fetch the sacking. I took comfort that my predicament showed me how deeply Holmes was moved. Loyal to the marrow all he cared for was me. I chased water from my eyes with my hand. My jacket tore. I twisted onto my stomach and grasped the nail with two fingers. 

A flump sounded out of sight as Holmes threw the sacks down. ‘It might be expedient to come down now,’ he said. ‘I’ll catch you.’

I laughed. Let go of the mooring. Slid feet first into air. Holmes’s arms wrapped around me with my back to his stomach. We dropped from on unsteady feet to our knees onto the hessian, inhaling the tang of hops and tea leaves mingled with spice. The sacking was no more than an inch thick. I turned inside his strong arms holding me gently. He was covered in dust but I seized the moment to prevent him from eroding my bravery with words. Felt his ribs under my hands, slid my arms around his waist. Pressed my mouth close to his, closed my eyes and felt for his lips.

His lips, warm and soft, sought out and met mine. We stayed like that for a long moment easing into a new chapter in our lives. His lips left mine. I felt his breath over my ear. The scent of his hair made me smile, I nestled in to enjoy it.

‘I thought,’ Holmes whispered, his fingers rising to card my hair, ‘that 1895 was my best year.’

‘It’s always 1895 now, if we take this road less travelled.’

‘Did I ever tell you that were a hopeless romantic?’ he asked.

‘Not quite like that before.’

At the sound of boots forging up the alley Holmes jumped up. I stood, searching for where my revolver had fallen.  
The breathless man slewed to a halt inside the door, staring at the wreckage, he bent double resting his hand clutching a pistol on his knee, holding his side. ‘I’ll kill him,’ he panted. ‘By Jove, so help me, I will.’

‘Your brother, Mr Arbuttle,’ said Holmes, ‘is already beyond the reach of judgement on this mortal coil.’

‘How the devil do you know my name?’

‘It’s not a great surprise to find you here, where I believe you must have previously been employed and where your brother chose to meet your employer, knowing the warehouse to have been closed. And where you guessed he must have been hiding. The only mystery is why it has not yet been demolished.’

‘Squabbling about compensation, as I understand,' Arbuttle volunteered. 'I left when a position became vacant. I see that you know my employers. I recognise the dress and cloak. Please, answer my question.’

Holmes smiled. ‘It could only have been your brother. His resemblance to you is slight but, nonetheless, observable to me. It is unfortunate that his imagination led him to think that there was more to your relationship with your employers than is the case.’

‘Pardon?’

‘I suggest that you go home to await Colonel Grimstone’s return and forget that you were ever here, unless the police discover that the body over there is your brother who met with an accident when the staircase collapsed. In which case your employers may contact me to vouch for you being blameless.’

‘I shall do so. I owe you my thanks, gentlemen,’ Arbuttle bowed with sincere grace before tottering away, mopping his brow.

Holmes divested himself of his disguise and wrapped it in a sack. I hailed a cab after we had ambled for ten minutes and took our news to our client. She pressed Holmes to accept a handsome fee which he politely declined on the grounds that the case had been an education. 'Of no small benefit to me,' he told her. It is most pleasant to live in 1895 and on this my dear detective finds he agrees.


End file.
